Flora (Volume Two)

Flora (Volume Two) is the second volume of Vivibear's modern romance novel Flora. Continuing from the first volume, it centers on Gong Liuxia, a Chinese girl studying painting, and Alfonso, a young Italian. Ten years earlier, in the southern Italian seaside town of Positano, Gong Liuxia met a boy painting among daisies; ten years later she reunites with the mysterious Count Alfonso in Rome and gradually learns of his other identity as decision-maker of Italy's EE organization, the head of the Mafia. In this second volume their relationship moves from resistance to acceptance, their feelings advancing amid conspiracy, danger, and entanglements with old flames, while the secrets behind Alfonso's dual identity as aristocrat and underworld boss are gradually uncovered, bringing the story to its final conclusion. Titled after Titian's Renaissance masterpiece Flora, the book blends exotic settings in Rome and Florence with art-museum thefts, feuds among wealthy families, and other plotlines into a decade-spanning love story set abroad.